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From: markrose@spss.com (Mark Rosenfelder)
Subject: Re: Chinese (was: ESPERANTO - SPAM ^ 6)
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References: <donhD3v8EG.275@netcom.com> <donhD9yzxv.9s9@netcom.com> <DA4JMo.t1@spss.com> <3rlgis$sj7@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu>
Date: Thu, 15 Jun 1995 18:07:00 GMT
Lines: 33

In article <3rlgis$sj7@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu>,
Chih-Hao Tsai <c-tsai4@casper.beckman.uiuc.edu> wrote:
>Mark Rosenfelder (markrose@spss.com) wrote:
>: not conclusive; they can forget either.  A follow-up study of a literacy
>: campaign in Shanxi, where 34000 peasants had been given instruction in
>: reading, found that 1/3 had become illiterate again, and the other 2/3
>: were unable to read newspapers.  (DeFrancis p. 209)
>
>You omitted one important fact: the 34,000 people were those who had
>received instruction in reading *by October 1958*. The China in 1958 is
>very different than today's China. The percentage of literacy may be quite
>different from what you have cited above. 

The citation wasn't intended to support a particular level of literacy,
but to suggest caution in interpreting literacy levels.  

>In the "China" chapter of the CIA World FactBook (URL:
>http://www.ic.gov/94fact/country/51.html), it says: 
>   Literacy: age 15 and over can read and write (1990)
>   total population 78%
>   male 87%
>   female 68%

Unfortunately, such figures are almost meaningless without a discussion
of the methodology behind them.  What are the figures based on?  What
exactly can people read; what sort of things can they write?

If you look up literacy figures for Japan in a book, you'll find numbers
like 99%.  However, as in the US, large numbers of people who have been
taught how to read and write are functionally illiterate.  Sato Hideo, 
quoted by DeFrancis, mentions that many public school graduates can only
write 500 characters some years after graduation.  The situation can only
be more serious in China.
